[Vinnie R.]

Thanks for your reply, Sherwood.

No offense taken at all and everyone here has a right to voice their opinion for or against this 5G/5.5G iMod. I just wish you all could give it a listen and then determine if it is worth it

I do understand that these posts can get heated, and I really appeciate everyone trying to keep it as friendly as possible.

Quote:

On a side note, Vinnie, I love my Sig 30. Drives my Druids like a charm.

Nice! As always, I am very happy (and greatful!) to read when you guys are enjoying your RWA gear... thank you!

Best regards,

Vinnie

 

[KB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thelonious Monk /img/forum/go_quote.gif there's no way i will get it if i need to spend $125 on a cable. i really do hope ken or another diyer steps up to make a cheaper cable with the capacitors, because then i may consider it. people have been asking for 5g imods for a while though, so at least he listens to his customers.

Respectfully, let me address this on my end.

The Cryo iMod enabled cable I am offering is $110 - not $125. Please look at the non imod version Cryo Dock (with no caps), it sells for $75. I think that an additional $35 for the cost of the caps and more importantly the extra time and effort to do the assembly is a pretty fair deal. I have to factor in that there are more points for failure over time. One of the things I really try and stand behind is product support. If you buy something from ALO and you have an issue with it I take care of the customer. I fix the problem or you get a new one, its personal folks. I do have the right to refuse this service but I only do this when it is obvious that there is some gross abuse, burned in a fire, run over by a car, bent wildly in half etc. So when there are more places for something to go wrong in a handmade cable, and these have double the solder points on a very delicate and sick tight space I think the pricing is about where it should be. Oh god I think that might have been a run on there in my rant, Scrypt will slay me.

I have taken a pummeling on some of the pricing on my upper end cables on some threads on Head-fi. I will say this 100 times; the upper end stuff is not for everyone. I do want to make the high end stuff available as an option for this small customer base. If I had more assistants I would be able to pump out a more cost effective product. Perhaps down the road I would like to enter this area but for now I want to make the very best product possible using the very best materials I can get my hands on.

Thank you for your support,

ken

 

[krmathis]

I wonder how long we will have to wait until we see another iMod nano?

Cause the previous "not enough internal space" and "PITA to mod" issues seems to be resolved (from what I understand they were valid for both the 5G iPod and the iPod nano)...
Point #1 still stands though. At least until Vinnie allow the users themselves to decide if 4GB or 8GB are enough storage space for their needs.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie R. /img/forum/go_quote.gif I understand that there are some of you interested in having the 1st Gen Nano modded, but I have decided not to offer this for the following reasons: 1) Limited storage space. When using an modded iPod, you are going to want to use Apple Lossless, or WAV (or FLAC if using Rockbox)... all of these take up a lot of space and 2GB or 4GB is not that much storage for Lossless encoded or WAV files.

Why not allow the users themselves to decide if 4GB (or 8GB for the 2gen iPod nano) is enough storage space.
I live happily with Apple Lossless files on a 4GB iPod nano, and I bet others do as well...

Quote:

2) There is no space inside of the Nano to fit the upgraded signal capacitors. The one Nano that I did mod used a "pigtail" cable that was hard-wired to the motherboard in the Nano, and the upgraded capacitors were installed in the cable itself.

Moving the capacitors to the docking cable resolves this, right?

Quote:

3) Quote: He didn't keep making them because it took too much time. It's the same reason he won't imod the 5g Ipods- it's not that he can't, it's just not enough space to work with. The labor takes much longer making the operation financially less profitable. This is very true. I have performed the iMod on the Nano (as well as the iPod Video). The Nano is very difficult to mod and even more delicate than the 4th Gen iPods, and MUCH more time consuming. The same holds true for the iPod Video... they are an extreme PITA to mod and I couldn't do it for $199.00. Best regards, Vinnie

According to this statement both the iPod nano and the 5G iPod are (was?) a PITA to mod. If they are an equal PITA to mod (which it seems like), this is not a valid point any longer...

Can't wait!

 

[Killercrush]

Krmathis, you're sooooooooo right.

 

[Thelonious Monk]

thanks to vinnie and ken for clearing some things up.

 

[Voltron]

Vinnie and Ken-

You guys are awesome. Not many vendors take issues head-on, respond to requests, suggestions, and complaints with equal respect, and try to explain themselves so clearly (your sentences weren't bad Ken!

). You guys are both models of decorum. Of course, it helps that I have met both of you and think you are super cool dudes, but even without that boost I would be impressed with your input on this thread.

I hope that your explanations hit home for those people thinking that you are charging a lot because you are each adding a lot of value beyond the wires, connectors and caps. Time is money and as someone who bills my clients over $600 an hour and who doesn't even provide a tangible product, I think that your time comes at bargain rates.

Keep on doing what you're doing, because plenty of people around here would be plenty unhappy if they didn't have your fine products to make their musical enjoyment that much better.

Cheers, Al

 

[immtbiker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thelonious Monk /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...if jesus came back and sold something i didn't care for i still wouldn't buy it.

You know where you're going...in a handbasket

 

[cpk]

Vinnie so why should someone buy the 4th Gen if the sq is so good on the
5th Gen with so little burn in? The difference of around a $100 dollar seems well worth spending. Doe the 4th Gen offer anything better over the 5th Gen?

Thanks

 

[jtevol1]

Vinnie, please explain why the 5G iMod sounds better than the 4G, when you've long maintained that the 4G uses a better DAC than the 5G...

 

[mrarroyo]

Vinnie, I am enjoying the heck of the 4th Gen iPod you iModded for me. Thanks.

I still have a second 4th Gen iPod waiting for a 120 Gb to become available for you to do your magic. Now that you are doing the 5 and 5.5 gen iPods will you still work on 4th Gen iPods in the future? Thanks.

Ken my friend, the gold/silver iMod Doc is just SICK!

 

[Voltron]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jtevol1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Vinnie, please explain why the 5G iMod sounds better than the 4G, when you've long maintained that the 4G uses a better DAC than the 5G...

I think the first couple of paragraphs in Vinnie's last post answer your question.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vinnie R. /img/forum/go_quote.gif All, A while back I modded the 5G, but did not do it the same way that I am now doing it. I don't believe I was performing it properly... I was trying my best to fit the upgraded caps into the unit, and deactivate the headphone jack to make it the modded line-out (just like I do for the 4G iMod). I suspect that I was not performing this mod correctly because I was NOT getting the results that I am now getting. Back thenI ran into some problems, had to throw away a few 5Gs (well, I saved some parts) and decided to not offer the mods for the 5G... it was just way too much of a PITA! Not too long ago I had an idea... I spoke with Ken of ALO and asked him if it was possible to install the caps into his dock cable. He told me that he'd give it a try, and then send me the resulting cable to me right before the HE2007 show. There was no burn-in on those caps and already this modded 5.5G was able to keep up with the modded 4G (that had hundreds of hours of burn-in)... and let me tell you, it is getting even better as I use it! The bass is even more defined and has more presence. The rest of the sound is very, very similar to that of the 4G iMod. Does the 5G iMod blow away the 4G iMod... NO. Do I prefer the sound of the modded 5G with ALO iMod cable... YES, and like I mentioned, it isn't even burned in yet!

 

[TheMarchingMule]

Oh SNAP I just thought of something...if I mod my current iPod (5G 30GB), and then need room to upgrade to a 60/80GB, I'll need a new board because as far as I know, the logic board of the 30GB differs from the bigger hard drives (64MB buffer).

So therefore, my train of logic is this: bigger hard drive = different logic board = the logic board is where the iMod is performed = you have to buy a new board, bigger hard drive, AND thus get another iMod treatment.

Just a big thought for all of the 30GB model peeps.

 

[tnmike1]

Gotta chime in regarding pricing here. As a lover of antique Chris Craft wooden boats, I can tell you customization of anything isn't cheap. Used to spending $100 per hour for a custom cabinetmaker to do interiors on these vessels, perhaps $75 per hour for professional restoration of exteriror planking. In other words, these boats aren't SeaRays or the like--they're wooden antiques maintained by professional craftsmen.

So people like Vinnie, Ken, Ray Samuels and others in this hobby are similar craftsmen--people doing highly skilled work on very technical items. As such, if you can't pay for their skills that's OK. Just don't slam their efforts, their expertise or their skills in custom manufacturing

 

[tw0k1ngs]

The thing is, Vinnie partook in some "marketing mischief" no matter what viewpoint you take, and having just purchased a 4g iMod and Cryo cable from ALO, I don't know whether to feel decieved or not.

On his site he said the Wolfson DAC in the 4g was far superior and mentioned nothing of the possibility of a 5g iMod because the 4g was the "holy grail" of iPods. So he either:

A. Decieved us about the iMod's "incredible" DAC and reasoning as to why it can't be done on the 5g (which I may have waited to get if I had known the DAC wasn't the REAL reason)

B. Is lying about this new 5g iMod that is slightly "superior" to the 4g because he still does a product to sell and a company to run, and the 4g refurbs are done and finished with.

I hate to say this, because Vinnie seems like a stand-up guy, and part is my frustration with being mislead, but it seems all too convinient that he just "messed up" some 5gs which is why they weren't sounding as great and now that the 4g's are all run dry, he finally found out what he was doing wrong. Seems all too timely.

All this coupled with the fact that... seriously, what's he going to say? Nope, I don't prefer the SQ of the new iPod I am selling. The old ones of which I cannot get anymore in mass quantities had the superior DAC. He is obviously trying to make this into a bigger business hence the combos/partnership with ALO and frankly, that would be bad for business. All too convinient for him to suddenly prefer his new product when, when he could get quantity of the old stuff, he FAR preffered the 4g for reasons which APPARENTLY don't even exist now.

That being said, I love my iMod.

 

[cpk]

Vinnie when will you be doing a comparison of the 4th vs the 5th gen? How many more hours till we hear the results and can make a decision on what best suits your customers needs.

Thanks